DUNCAN'S GRUBSTAKE
Like almost all business Radville, Duncan went home for his midday meal. It wasn't much of a walk from Sam Graham's store to Miss Carpenter's, and he didn't mind in the least.
On this particular day he was sincerely hungry, but he had much to think about besides, and between the two he just bolted his food and made off, hot-foot for the store, greatly to the distress of his landlady.
Naturally, knowing nothing about Sam's note, although he knew Pete Willing by sight as the sheriff and town drunkard in one, it didn't worry him at all to discover that gentleman tacking toward the store as he hurried up Beech Street, eager to get back to his job. The first intimation that he had of anything seriously amiss was when he entered, practically on Pete's heels.
Pete Willing is the best-natured man in the world, as a general rule; drunk or sober, Radville tolerates him for just that quality. On only two occasions is he irritable and unmanageable: when his wife gets after him about the drink (Mrs. Willing is an able-bodied lady of Irish descent, with a will and a tongue of her own, to say nothing of an arm a blacksmith might envy) and when he has a duty to perform in his official capacity. It is in the latter instance that he rises magnificently to the dignity of his position. The majesty of the law in his hands becomes at once a bludgeon and a pandemonium. No one has ever been arrested in Radville, since Pete became sheriff, without the entire community becoming aware of it simultaneously. Pete's voice in moments of excitement carries like a cannonade. Legrand Gunn said that Pete had only to get into an argument in front of the Bigelow House to make the entire disorderly population of the Flats, across the river, break for the hills. (This is probably an exaggeration.)
Tall, gaunt, gangling and loose-jointed, Duncan found Pete standing in the middle of the floor, hands in pockets and a noisome stogie thrust into a corner of his mouth, swaying a little (he was almost sober at the moment) and explaining his mission to old Sam in a voice of thunder.
"I'm sorry about this, Sam," he bellowed, "but there ain't no use wastin' words 'bout it. I'm here on business."
"But what's the matter, Sheriff?" Graham asked, his voice breaking.
"Ah, you know you got a note due at the bank, don't you?"
"Yes, but——"
"Well, it's protested. Y'un'erstand that, don't you?"
"Why, Pete!" Graham swayed, half-dazed.
"An' I'm here to serve the papers onto you."
"But—but there must be some mistake." Sam clutched blindly for his hat. "I'll step over and see Mr. Lockwood. He'll arrange to give me a little more time, I'm sure. He's always been kind, very kind."
"Naw!" Pete bawled, "Mr. Lockwood don't want to see you unless you can settle. Y'can save yourself the trouble. Y'gottuh put up or git out!"
"But, Pete—Mr. Lockwood said he didn't want to see me?"
"Yah, that's what he said, and I got orders from him, soon's I got judgment to close y'up. And that goes, see!"
"To—to turn me out of the store, Pete?" Graham's world had slipped from beneath his feet. He was overwhelmed, witless, as helpless as a child. And it was with a child's look of pitiful dismay and perplexity that he faced the sheriff.
The father who has fallen short of his child's trust and confidence knows that look. To Duncan its appeal was irresistible. He had his hand in his pocket, clutching the still considerable remains of what Kellogg had termed his grubstake, before he knew it.
"But—there must be some mistake," Graham repeated pleadingly. "It can't be—Mr. Lockwood surely wouldn't——"
"Now there ain't no use whinin' about it!" Willing roared him into silence. "Law is Law, and——" He ceased quickly, surprised to find Duncan standing between him and his prey. "What——!" he began.
"Wait!" Duncan touched him gently on the chest with a forefinger, at the same time catching and holding the sheriff's eye. "Are you," he inquired quietly, "labouring under the impression that Mr. Graham is deaf?"
"What——!"
Duncan turned to Sam, apologetically. "He said 'what.' Did you hear it, sir?"
But by this time Pete was recovering to some degree. "What've you got to say about this?" he demanded, crescendo.
"I'll show you," Duncan told him in the same quiet voice, "what I've got to say if you'll just put the soft pedal on and tell me the amount of that note."
Pete struggled mightily to regain his vanished advantage, but try as he would he could not escape Duncan's cool, inquisitive eye. Visibly he lost importance as he yielded and dived into his pocket. "With interest and costs," he said less stridently, "it figgers up three hundred 'n' eighty dollars 'n' eighty-two cents."
There's no use denying that Duncan was staggered. For the moment his poise deserted him utterly. He could only repeat, as one who dreams:"Three hundred and eighty dollars!..."
His momentary consternation afforded Pete the opening he needed. The room shook with his regained sense of prestige.
"Yes, three hundred 'n' eighty dollars 'n'—say, you look a-here!——"
Again the calm forefinger touched him, and like a hypnotist's pass checked the rolling volume of noise. "Listen," begged Duncan: "if you've got anything else to tell me, please retire to the opposite side of the street and whisper it. Meanwhile,be quiet!"
Pete's jaw dropped. In all his experience no one had ever succeeded in taming him so completely—and in so brief a time. He experienced a sensation of having been robbed of his spinal column, and before he could pull himself together was staring in awe, while with one final admonitory poke of his finger Duncan turned and made for the soda counter, beneath which was the till. His scanty roll of bills was in his right hand, and there concealed. He stepped behind the counter (old Sam watching him with an amazement no less absolute than Pete's), pulled out the till, bent over it with an assured air, and pushed back the coin slide. Then quite naturally, he produced—with his right hand—his four-hundred-and-odd dollars from the bill drawer, stood up and counted them with great deliberation.
"One ... two ... three ... four." He smiled winningly at Pete. "Four hundred dollars, Mr. Sheriff. Now will you be good enough to hand over that note and the change and then put yourself, and that pickle you're wearing in your face, on the other side of the door?"
Pete struggled tremendously and finally succeeded in producing from his system a still, small voice:
"I ain't got the note with me, Mr. Duncan."
"Then perhaps you won't mind going to the bank for it?"
Half suffocated, Pete assented. "Aw'right, I'll go and git it. Kin I have the money?"
"Certainly." Duncan extended the bills, then on second thought withheld them. "I presume you're a regular sheriff?" he inquired.
Very proudly Pete turned back the lapel of his coat and distended the chest on which shone his nickel-plated badge of office. Duncan examined it with grave admiration.
"It's beautiful," he said with a sigh. "Here."
Gingerly, Pete grasped the bills, thumbed them over to make sure they were real, and bolted as for his life, his coat-tails level on the breeze.
'Four Hundred Dollars, Mr. Sheriff'
There floated back to Duncan and old Sam his valedictory: "Wal, I'll be damned!"
With a short, quiet laugh Duncan made as though to go out to the back-yard, where the new stock was being delivered, having been carted up from the station through the alley—thereby doing away with the necessity of cluttering up the store with a débris of packing. His primal instinct of the moment was to get right out of that with all the expedition practicable. He didn't want to be alone with old Sam another second. The essential insanity of which he had just done was patent; there was no excuse for it, and he was like to suffer severely as a consequence. But he wasn't sorry, and he did not want to be thanked.
"I'm going," he said hurriedly, "to find me a hatchet and knock the stuffing out of some of those packing-cases. Want to get all that truck indoors before nightfall, you know——"
But old Sam wasn't to be put off by any such obvious subterfuge as that. He put himself in front of Duncan.
"Nat, my boy," he said, tremulous, "I can't let this go through—I can't allow you——"
"There, now!" Duncan told him, unconcernedly yet kindly, "don't say anything more. It's over and done with."
"But you mustn't—I'll turn over the store to you, if——"
"O Lord!" Duncan's dismay was as genuine as his desire to escape Graham's gratitude. "No—don't! Please don't do that!"
"But I must do something, my boy. I can't accept so great a kindness— unless," said Graham with a timid flash of hope—"you'll consider a partnership——"
"That's it!" cried Duncan, glad of any way out of the situation. "That's the way to do it—a partnership. No, please don't say any more about it, just now. We can settle details later. ... We've got to get busy. Tell you what I wish you'd do while I'm busting open those boxes: if you don't mind going down to the station to make sure that everything's——"
"Yes, I'll go; I'll go at once." Sam groped for Duncan's hand, caught and held it between both his own. "If—if fate—or something hadn't brought you here to-day—I don't know what would've happened to Betty and me. ..."
"Never mind," Duncan tried to soothe him. "Just don't you think about it."
Graham shook his head, still bewildered. "Perhaps," he stumbled on, "to a gentleman of your wealth four hundred dollars isn't much——"
"No," said Duncan gravely, without the flicker of an eyelash: "nothing." Then he smiled cheerfully. "There, that's all right."
"To me it's meant everything. I—I only hope I'll be able to repay you some day. God bless you, my boy, God bless you!"
He managed to jam his hat awry on his white old head and found his way out, his hands fumbling with one another, his lips moving inaudibly— perhaps in a prayer of thanksgiving.
Motionless, Duncan watched him go, and for several minutes thereafter stood without stirring, lost in thought. Then his quaint, deprecatory grin dawned. He found a handkerchief and mopped his forehead.
"Whew!" he whistled. "I wouldn't go through that again for a million dollars."
Gradually the smile faded. He puckered his brows and drew down the corners of his mouth. Thoughtfully he ran a hand into his pocket and produced the little crumpled wad of bills of small denominations, representing all he had left in the world. Smoothing them out on the counter, he arranged them carefully, summing up; then returned them to his pocket.
"Harry," he observed—"Harry said I couldn't get rid of that stake in a year!...
"He doesn't know what a fast town this is!"
THE BUSINESS MAN AND MR. BURNHAM
It was, perhaps, within the next thirty minutes that Betty (who had been left in charge of the store while Duncan, with coat and collar off and sleeves rolled above his elbows, hacked and pounded and pried and banged at the packing-cases in the backyard) sought him on the scene of his labours.
She waited quietly, a little to one side, watching him, until he should become aware of her presence. What she was thinking would have been hard to define, from the inscrutable eyes in her set, tired face of a child. There was no longer any trace of envy, suspicion or resentment in her attitude toward the young man. You might have guessed that she was trying to analyse him, weighing him in the scales of her impoverished and lopsided knowledge of human nature, and wondering if such conclusions as she was able to arrive at were dependable.
In the course of time he caught sight of that patient, sad little figure, and, pausing, panting and perspiring under the July sun, cheerfully brandished his weapon from the centre of a widespread area of wreckage and destruction.
"Pretty good work for a York dude—not?" he laughed.
There was a shadowy smile in her grave eyes. "It's an improvement," she said evenly.
He shot her a curious glance. "Ouch!" he said thoughtfully.
"I just came to tell you," she went on, again immobile, "you're wanted inside."
"Somebody wants to seeme?" he demanded of her retreating back.
"Yes."
"But who—?"
"Blinky Lockwood," she replied over her shoulder, as she went into the house.
"Lockwood?" He speculated, for an instant puzzled. Then suddenly: "Father-in-law!" he cried. "Shivering snakes! he mustn't catch me like this! I, a business man!"
Hastily rolling down his shirt-sleeves and shrugging himself into his coat, he made for the store, buttoning his collar and knotting his tie on the way.
He found Blinky nosing round the room, quite alone. Betty had disappeared, and the old scoundrel was having quite an enjoyable time poking into matters that did not concern him and disapproving of them on general principles. So far as the improvements concerned old Sam Graham's fortunes, Blinky would concede no health in them. But with regard to Duncan there was another story to tell: Duncan apparently controlled money, to some vague extent.
"You're Mr. Duncan, ain't you?" he asked with his leer, moving down to meet Nat.
"Yes, sir. Mr. Lockwood, I believe?"
"That's me." Blinky clutched his hand in a genial claw. "I'm glad to meet you."
"Thank you," said Duncan. "Something I can do for you, sir?"
"Wal, Pete Willin' was tellin' me you'd just took up this note of Graham's?"
"Not exactly; the firm took it up."
Blinky winked savagely at this. "The firm? What firm?"
"Graham and Duncan, sir. I've been taken into partnership."
"Have, eh?" Blinky grunted mysteriously and fished in his pocket for some bills and silver. "Wal, here's some change comin' to the firm, then; and here," he added, producing the document in question, "is Sam's note."
"Thank you." Duncan ceremoniously deposited both in the till, going behind the soda fountain to do so, and then waited, expectant. Blinky was grunting busily in the key of one about to make an important communication.
"I'm glad you're a-comin' in here with Sam," he said at length, with an acid grimace that was meant to be a smile.
"Oh, it may be only temporary." Nat endeavoured to assume a seraphic expression, and partially succeeded. "I'm devoting much of my time to my studies," he pursued primly; "but nevertheless feel I should be earning something, too."
"That's right; that's the kind of spirit I like to see in a young man.... You always go to church, don't you?"
"No, sir—Sundays only."
"That's what I mean. D'you drink?"
"Oh, no, sir," Duncan parroted glibly: "don't smoke, drink, swear, and on Sundays I go to church."
The bland smile with which he faced Lockwood's keen scrutiny disarmed suspicion.
"I'm glad to hear that," Blinky told him. "I'm at the head of the temp'rance movement here, and I hope you'll join us, and set an example to our fast young men."
"I feel sure I could do that," said Duncan meekly.
Lockwood removed his hat, exposing the cranium of a bald-headed eagle, and fanned himself. "Warm to-day," he observed in an endeavour to be genial that all but sprained his temperament.
Indeed, so great was the strain that he winked violently.
Duncan observed this phenomenon with natural astonishment not unmixed with awe. "Yes, sir, very," he agreed, wondering what it might portend.
"I believe I'll have a glass of sody."
"Certainly." Duncan, by now habituated to the formulae of soda dispensing, promptly produced a bright and shining glass.
"I see you've been fixin' this place up some."
"Oh, yes," said Nat loftily. "We expect to have the best drugstore in the State. We're getting in new stock to-day, and naturally things are a little out of order, but we'll straighten up without delay. We'll try to deserve your esteemed patronage," he concluded doubtfully, with a hazy impression that such a speech would be considered appropriate under the circumstances.
"You shall have it, Mr. Duncan, you shall have it!"
"Thank you, I'm sure.... What syrup would you prefer?"
"Just sody," stipulated Lockwood.
His spasmodic wink again smote Duncan's understanding a mighty blow. Unable to believe his eyes, he hedged and stammered. Could it be—? This from the leader of the temperance movement in Radville?
"I beg pardon——?"
His denseness irritated Blinky slightly, with the result that the right side of his face again underwent an alarming convulsion. "I say," he explained carefully, "just—plain—sody."
"On the level?"
"What?" grunted Blinky; and blinked again.
A smile of comprehension irradiated Nat's features. "Pardon," he said, "I'm a little new to the business."
Blinky, fanning himself industriously, glared round the store while Duncan, turning his back, discreetly found and uncorked the whiskey bottle. He was still a trifle dubious about the transaction, but on the sound principles of doing all things thoroughly, poured out a liberal dose of raw, red liquor. Then, with his fingers clamped tightly about the bottom of the glass, the better to conceal its contents from any casual but inquisitive passer-by, he quickly filled it with soda and placed it before Blinky, accompanying the action with the sweetest of childlike smiles.
Lockwood, nodding his acknowledgments, lifted the glass to his lips. Duncan awaited developments with some apprehension. To his relief, however, Blinky, after an experimental swallow, emptied the mixture expeditiously into his system; and smacked his thin lips resoundingly.
"How," he demanded, "can anyone want intoxicatin' likers when they can get such a bracin' drink as that?"
"I pass," Nat breathed, limp with admiration of such astounding hypocrisy.
Blinky reluctantly pried a nickel loose from his finances and placed it on the counter. Duncan regarded it with disdain.
"Ten cents more, please," he suggested tactfully.
"What for?"
"Plain sody." The explanation was accompanied by a very passable imitation of Blinky's blink.
Happily for Duncan, Blinky has no sense of humour: if he had he would explode the very first time he indulged in introspection.
"Not much," said he with his sour smile. "I guess you're jokin'.... Well, good luck to you, Mr. Duncan. I'd like to have you come round and see us some evenin'."
"Thank you very much, sir." Duncan accompanied Blinky to the door. "I've already had the pleasure of meeting your daughter, sir. She's a charming girl."
"I'm real glad you think so," said Blinky, intensely gratified. "She seems to've taken a great shine to you, too. Come round and get 'quainted with the hull family. You're the sort of young feller I'd like her to know." He paused and looked Nat up and down captiously, as one might appraise the points of a horse of quality put up for sale. "Good-day," said he, with the most significant of winks.
"Oh, that's all right," Nat hastened to reassure him. "I won't say a word about it."
Blinky, on the point of leaving, started to question this (to him) cryptic utterance, but luckily had the current of his thoughts diverted by the entrance of Roland Barnette, in company with his friend Mr. Burnham.
Roland's consternation at this unexpected encounter was, in the mildest term, extreme. At sight of his employer he pulled up as if slapped. "Oh!" he faltered, "I didn't know you was here, sir."
"No," said Blinky with keen relish, "I guess you didn't."
"I—ah—come over to see Sam about that note," stammered Roland.
"Wal, don't you bother your head 'bout what ain't your business, Roly. Come on back to the bank."
"All right, sir." Roland grasped frantically at the opportunity to emphasise his importance. "Excuse me, Mr. Lockwood, but I'd like to interdoos you to a friend of mine, Mr. Burnham from Noo York."
Amused, Burnham stepped into the breach. "How are you?" he said with the proper nuance of cordiality, offering his hand.
Lockwood shook it unemotionally. "How de do?" he said, perfunctory.
"I brought Mr. Burnham in to see Sam——"
"Yes," Burnham interrupted Roland quickly; "Barnette's been kind enough to show me round town a bit."
"Here on business?" inquired Lockwood pointedly.
"No, not exactly," returned Burnham with practised ease, "just looking round."
"Only lookin', eh?" Blinky's countenance underwent one of its erratic quakes as he examined Burnham with his habitual intentness.
The New Yorker caught the wink and lost breath. "Ah—yes—that's all," he assented uneasily. And as he spoke another wink dumbfounded him. "Why?" he asked, with a distinct loss of assurance. "Don't you believe it."
"Don't see no reason why I shouldn't," grunted Blinky. "Hope you'll like what you see. Good day."
"So long ... Mr. Lockwood," returned Burnham uncertainly.
Lockwood paused outside the door. "Come 'long, Roland."
"Yes, sir; right away; just a minute." Roland was lingering unwillingly, detained by Burnham's imperative hand. "What d'you want? I got to hurry."
"What was he winking at me for?" demanded Burnham heatedly. "Have you——?"
"Oh!" Roland laughed. "He wasn't winking. He can't help doing that. It's a twitchin' he's got in his eye. That's why they call him Blinky."
"Oh, that was it!" Burnham accepted the explanation with distinct relief, while Duncan, who had been an unregarded spectator, suddenly found cause to retire behind one of the show-cases on important business.
So that was the explanation!...
After his paroxysm had subsided and he felt able to control his facial muscles, Duncan emerged, suave and solemn. Roland had disappeared with Blinky, and Burnham was alone.
"Anything you wish, sir?" asked Nat.
"Only to see Mr. Graham."
"He's out just at present, but I think he'll be back in a moment or so. Will you wait? You'll find that chair comfortable, I think."
"Believe I will," said Burnham with an air. He seated himself. "I can't wait long, though," he amended.
"Yes, sir. And if you'll excuse me——?"
Burnham's hand dismissed him with a tolerant wave. "Go right on about your business," he said with supreme condescension.
And Duncan returned to his work in the backyard. It wasn't long before he found occasion to go back to the store, and by that time old Sam was there in conversation with Burnham. Neither noticed Nat as he entered, and to begin with he paid them little heed, being occupied with his task of depositing an armful of bottles without mishap and then placing them on the shelves. The hum of their voices from the other side of the counter struck an indifferent ear while he busied himself, but presently a word or phrase caught his interest, and he found himself listening, at first casually, then with waxing attention.
"That's part of my business," he heard Burnham say in his sleek, oleaginous accents. "Sometimes I pick up an odd no-'count contraption that makes me a bit of money, and more times I'm stung and lose on it. It's all a gamble, of course, and I'm that way—like to take a gambling chance on anything that strikes my fancy—like that burner of yours."
"Yes," Graham returned: "the gas arrangement."
"It's a curious idea—quite different from the one I told you about; but I kinda took to it. There might be something to it, and again there mightn't. I've been thinking I might be willing to risk a few dollars on it, if we could come to terms."
"Do you mean it, really?" said old Sam eagerly.
"Not to invest in it, so to speak; I don't think it's chances are strong enough for that. But if you'd care to sell the patent outright and aren't too ambitious, we might make a dicker. What d'you say?"
"Why, yes," said Graham, quivering with anticipation. "Yes, indeed, if—"
"Well?"
"If you really think it's worth anything, sir."
"Well, as I say, there's no telling; but I was thinking about it at dinner, and I sort of concluded I'd like to own that burner, so I made out a little bill of sale, and I says to myself, says I: 'If Graham will take five hundred dollars for that patent, I'll give him spot cash, right in his hand,' says I."
With this Burnham tipped back in his chair, and brought forth a wallet from which he drew a sheet of paper and several bills.
"Five hundred dollars!" repeated Graham, thunderstruck by this munificence.
"Yes, sir: five hundred, cash! To tell you the truth—guess you don't know it—I heard at the bank that they didn't intend to extend the time on that note of yours, and I thought this five hundred would come in handy, and kind of wanted to help you out. Now what do you say?"
He flourished the bills under Graham's nose and waited, entirely at ease as to his answer.
"Well," said the old man, "it is kind of you, sir—very kind. Everybody's been good to me recently—or else I'm dreamin'."
"Then it's a bargain?"
"Why, I hope it won't lose any money for you, Mr. Burnham," Sam hesitated, with his ineradicable sense of fairness and square-dealing. "Making gas from crude oil ought to—"
Duncan never heard the end of that speech. For some moments he had been listening intently, trying to recollect something. The name of Burnham plucked a string on the instrument of his memory; he knew he had heard it, some place, some time in the past; but how, or when, or in respect to what he could not make up his mind. It had required Sam's reference to gas and crude oil to close the circuit. Then he remembered: Kellogg had mentioned a man by the name of Burnham who was "on the track of" an important invention for making gas from crude oil. This must be the man, Burnham, the tracker; and poor old Graham must be the tracked....
Without warning Duncan ran round and made himself an uninvited third to the conference.
"Mr. Graham, one moment!" he begged, excited. "Is this patent of yours on a process of making gas from crude oil?"
Burnham looked up impatiently, frowning at the interruption, but Graham was all good humour.
"Why, yes," he started to explain; "it's that burner over there that—"
"But I wouldn't sell it just yet if I were you," said Nat. "It may be worth a good deal—"
"Now look here!" Burnham got to his feet in anger. "What business 've you got butting into this?" he demanded, putting himself between Duncan and the inventor.
"Me?" Duncan queried simply. "Only just because I'm a business man. If you don't believe it, ask Mr. Graham."
"He's got a perfect right to advise me, Mr. Burnham," interposed Graham, rising.
"Well, but—but what objection 've you got to his making a little money out of this patent?" Burnham blustered.
"None; only I want to look into the matter first. I think it might be— ah—advisable."
"What makes you think so?" demanded Burnham, his tone withering.
"Well," said Nat, with an effort summoning his faculties to cope with a matter of strict business, "it's this way: I've got anidea," he said, poking at Burnham with the forefinger which had proven so effective with Pete Willing, "that you wouldn't offer five hundred iron men for this burner unless you expected to make something big out of it, and... it ought to be worth just as much to Mr. Graham as to you."
"Ah, you don't know what you're talking about."
"I know that," Nat admitted simply, "but I do happen to know you're promoting a scheme for making gas from crude oil, and if Mr. Graham will listen to me you won't get his patent until I've consulted my friend, Henry Kellogg."
"Kellogg!"
"Yes. You know—of L.J. Bartlett & Company." Nat's forefinger continued to do deadly work. Burnham backed away from it as from a fiery brand.
"Oh, well!" he said, dashed, "if you're representing Kellogg"—and Nat took care not to refute the implication—"I—I don't want to interfere. Only," he pursued at random, in his discomfiture, "I can't see why he sent you here."
"I'd be ashamed to tell you," Nat returned with an open smile. "Better ask him."
Burnham gathered his wits together for a final threat. "That's what I will do!" he threatened. "And I'll do it the minute I can see him. You can bet on that, Mister What's-Your-Name!"
"No, I can't," said Nat naïvely. "I'm not allowed to gamble."
His ingenuous expression exasperated Burnham. The man lost control of his temper at the same moment that he acknowledged to himself his defeat. In disgust he turned away.
"Oh, there's no use talking to you—"
"That's right," Nat agreed fairly.
"But I'll see you again, Mr. Graham—"
"Not alone, if I can help it, Mr. Burnham," Duncan amended sweetly.
"But," Burnham continued, severely ignoring Nat and addressing himself squarely to Graham, "you take my tip and don't do any business with this fellow until you find out who he is." He flung himself out of the shop with a barked: "Good-day!"
"Well, Mr. Graham?" Duncan turned a little apprehensively to the inventor. But Sam's expression was almost one of beatific content. His weak old lips were pursed, his eyes half-closed, his finger tips joined, and he was rocking back and forth on his heels.
"Margaret used to talk that way, sometimes," he remarked. "She was the best woman in the world—and the wisest. She used to take care of me and protect me from my foolish impulses, just as you do, my boy...."
For a space Duncan kept silent, respecting the old man's memories, and a great deal humbled in spirit by the parallel Sam had drawn. Then: "I was afraid what I said would sound queer to you, sir," he ventured— "that you mightn't understand that I'm not here to do you out of your invention..."
"There's nothing on earth, my boy,"—Graham's hand fell on Nat's arm— "could make me think that. But five hundred dollars, you see, would have repaid you for taking up that note, and—and I could have bought Betty a new dress for the party. But I'm sure you've done what's best. You're a business man—"
"Don't!" Nat pleaded wildly. "I've been called that so much of late that it's beginning to hurt!"
MOSTLY ABOUT BETTY
Sam Graham said to me, that night: "I don't know when so many things have happened to me in so short a time. It don't seem hardly possible it's only four days since that boy came in here asking for a job. It's wonderful, simply wonderful, the change he's made."
He waved a comprehensive hand, and I, glancing round the transformed store, agreed with him. Everything was spick and span and mighty attractive—clean and neat-looking—with the new stock in the shining cases and arranged on the glistening white shelves: not all of it set out by any means, of course, but no unplaced goods in sight, cluttering up the counters or kicking round the floor.
"The way he's worked——! You'd hardly believe it, Homer. He said he wanted to get home early so's to write a letter to a friend of his in New York, a Mr. Kellogg, junior member of L. J. Bartlett & Company, about my invention. But he insisted on leaving everything to rights for business to-morrow. And just look!"
"But I thought Roland Barnette——?" I suggested with guile. Of course I'd heard a rumour of what had happened—'most everyone in town had—and how Roland and his friend, Mr. Burnham, had sort of fallen out on the way from the Bigelow House to the train; but no one knew anything definite, and I wanted to get "the rights of it," as Radville says.
So I had dropped in at Graham's, on my way home from the office, as I often do, for an evening smoke and a bit of gossip: something I rarely indulge in, but which I've found has a curious psychological effect on the circulation of theCitizen—like a tonic. Sam was just at the point of closing up. He was alone, Duncan having gone home about an hour earlier, and Betty being upstairs, while (since it was quite half-past nine) all the rest of Radville, with few exceptions (chiefly to be noted at Schwartz's and round the Bigelow House bar) was making its final rounds of the day: locking the front door, putting out the lamp in its living-room, banking the fire in the range, ejecting the cat from the kitchen and wiping out the sink, and finally, odoriferous kerosene lamp in hand, climbing slowly to the stuffy upstairs bed-chamber. Indeed, the lights of Radville begin to go out about half-past eight; by ten, as a rule, the town is as lively as a cemetery.
But I am by nature inexorable and merciless, a masterful man with such as old Sam; and it was an hour later before I left him, drained of the last detail of the day. He was a weary man, but a happy one, when he bade me good-night, and I myself felt a little warmed by his cheerfulness as I plodded up Main Street through the thick oppression of darkness beneath the elms.
After a time I became aware that someone was overtaking me, and waited, thinking at first it would be one of my people. But it wasn't long before I recognised from the quick tempo of the approaching footfalls that this was no Radvillian. There was just light enough—starlight striking down through the thinner spaces in the interlacing foliage—to make visible a moving shadow, and when it drew nearer I saluted it with confidence.
"Good-evening, Mr. Duncan."
He stopped short, peering through the gloom. "Good-evening, but—Mr. Littlejohn? Glad to see you." He joined me and we proceeded homeward, he moderating his stride a trifle in deference to my age. "Aren't you late?"
"A bit," I admitted. "I've been gossiping with Sam Graham."
"Oh...?"
"You're out late yourself, Mr. Duncan, for one of such regular, not to say abnormal, habits."
He laughed lightly. "Had a letter I wanted to catch the first morning train."
"Then you're interested in Sam's burner?"
"No, I'm not, but I hope to interest others....Oh, yes: Mr. Graham told you about it, of course.... It just struck me that if a man of Burnham's stamp was willing to risk five hundred dollars on the proposition, he very likely foresaw a profit in it that might as well be Mr. Graham's. So I've sent a detailed description of the thing to a friend in New York, who'll look into it for me."
He was silent for a little.
"Who's Colonel Bohun?" he asked suddenly.
"Why do you ask?"
"I saw him this evening. He was passing the store and stopped to glare in as if he hated it—stopped so long that I got nervous and asked Miss Lockwood (she'd just happened in for a parting glass—of soda) whether he was an anarchist or a retired burglar. She told me his name, but was otherwise inhumanly reticent."
"For Josie?" I chuckled; but he didn't respond. So I took up the tale of the first family of Radville.
"The story runs," said I, "that the Bohuns were one of the F.F.V.'s; that they sickened of slavery, freed their slaves and moved North, to settle in Radville. Ibelievethey came from somewhere round Lynchburg; but that was a couple of generations ago. When the Civil War broke out the old Colonel up there"—I gestured vaguely in the general direction of the Bohun mansion—"couldn't keep out of it, and naturally he couldn't fight with the North. He won his spurs under Lee.... After the war had blown over he came home, to find that his only son had enlisted with the Radville company and disappeared at Gettysburg. It pretty nearly killed the old man—though he wasn't so old then; but there's fire in the Bohun blood, and his boy's action seemed to him nothing less than treason."
"And that's what soured him on the world?"
"Not altogether. He had a daughter—Margaret. She was the most beautiful woman in the world...." I suspect my voice broke a little just there, for there was a shade of respectful sympathy in the monosyllable with which he filled the pause. "He swore she should never marry a Northerner, but she did; I guess, being a Bohun, she had to, after hearing she must not. There were two of us that loved her, but she chose Sam Graham...."
"Why," he said awkwardly—"I'm sorry."
"I'm not: she was right, if I couldn't see it that way. They ran away— and so did I. I went East, but they came back to Radville. Colonel Bohun never forgave them, but they were very happy till she died. Betty's their daughter, of course: Sam's not the kind that marries more than once."
Duncan thought this over without comment until we reached our gate. There he paused for a moment.
"He's got plenty of money, I presume—old Bohun?"
"So they say. Probably not much now, but a great deal more than he needs."
"Then why doesn't somebody get after the old scoundrel and make him do something for that poor—for Miss Graham?" he asked indignantly.
"He tried it once, but they wouldn't listen. His conditions were impossible," I explained. "She was to renounce her father and take the name of Bohun———."
"What rot!" Duncan growled. "What an old fiend he must be! Of course he knew she'd refuse."
"I suspect he did."
Duncan hesitated a bit longer. "Anyhow," he said suddenly, "somebody ought to get after him and make him see the thing the right way."
"S'pose you try it, Mr. Duncan?" I suggested maliciously, as we went up the walk.
He stopped at the door. "Perhaps I shall," he said slowly.
"I'd advise you not to. The last man that tried it has no desire to repeat the experiment."
"Who was he?"
"An old fool named Homer Littlejohn."
Duncan put out his hand. "Shake!" he insisted. "We'll talk this over another time."
We went in very quietly, lit our candles, and with elaborate care avoided the home-made burglar-alarm (a complicated arrangement of strings and tinpans on the staircase, which Miss Carpenter insists on maintaining ever since Roland Barnette missed a dollar bill and insisted his pocket had been picked on Main Street) and so mounted to our rooms. As we were entering (our doors adjoin) a thought delayed my good-night.
"By the way, did you get your invitation to Josie Lockwood's party, Mr. Duncan? I happened to see it on the hall table this evening."
"Yes," he assented quietly.
"It's to be the social event of the year. I hope you'll enjoy it."
"I'm not going."
"Not going!... Why not?"
"It's against the rules at first—I mean, business rules. I'll be so busy at the store, you know."
"Josie'll be disappointed."
"Thank you," said he gratefully. "Good-night."
Alone, I was fain to confess he baffled my understanding.
The rush of business to Graham's began the following morning: Duncan's hands were full almost from the first, and he had to relegate such matters as making final disposition of his stock and getting acquainted with it to the intervals between waiting upon customers. Old Sam must have put up more prescriptions in the next few days than he had within the last five years. Everybody wanted to take a look at the renovated store, shake Sam's hand, and see what the new partner was really like. Sothern and Lee's was for some days quite deserted, especially after Duncan took a leaf out of their book, bought an ice-cream freezer and began to serve dabs of cream in the sody. I've always maintained that our Radville folks are pretty thoroughly sot in their ways (the phrase is local), but the way they flocked to Graham's forced me to amend the aphorism with the clause: "except when their curiosity is aroused." Every woman in town wanted to know what Graham and Duncan carried that Sothern and Lee didn't, and how much cheaper they were than the more established concern; also they wanted to know Mr. Duncan. I suspect no drug-store ever had so many inquiries for articles that it didn't carry, but might possibly, or ought to, in the estimation of the prospective purchasers, as well as that at no time had Radvillians happened to think of so many things that they could get at a druggist's. People drove in from as far as twenty miles away, as soon as the news reached them, to buy notepaper and stamps—people who didn't write or receive a letter a month. Will Bigelow, even, dropped round and bought samples of the tobacco stock, from two-fors up to ten-centers—and smoked them with expressive snorts. Tracey Tanner's soda and cigarette trade was transferred bodily to Graham's from the first, and Roland Barnette gave it his patronage, albeit grudgingly, as soon as he found it impossible to shake Josie Lockwood's allegiance. I say grudgingly, because Roland didn't like the new partner, and had said so from the first. But everyone else did like him, almost without exception. His attentiveness and courtesy were not ungrateful after the way things were thrown at you at Sothern and Lee's, we declared.
Duncan certainly did strive to please. No man ever worked harder in a Radville store than he did. And from the time that he began to believe there would be some reward for his exertions, that the business was susceptible to being built up by the employment of progressive methods, he grew astonishingly prolific of ideas, from our sleepy point of view. The window displays were changed almost daily, to begin with, and were made as interesting as possible; we learned to go blocks out of our way to find out what Graham and Duncan were exploiting to-day. And daily bargain sales were instituted—low-priced articles of everyday use, such as shaving soap, tooth brushes, and the like, being sold at a few cents above cost on certain days which were announced in advance by means of hand-lettered cards in the show-windows; whereas formerly we had always been obliged to pay full list-prices. An axiom of his creed as it developed was to the effect that stock must not be allowed to stand idle upon the shelves; if there were no call for a certain line of articles, it must be stimulated. I remember that, some time along in August, he began to worry about the inactivity in cough-syrups.
"No one wants cough-syrups in summer," he told Graham; "that stuff's been here six weeks and more. It's getting out of training. Needs exercise. Look at this bottle: it says: 'Shake well.' Now it hasn't been shaken at all since it was put on the shelves, and I haven't got time to shake it every morning. We must either hire a boy to give it regular exercise, or sell it off and get in a fresh supply for the winter. I'll have to think up some scheme to make 'em take it off our hands."
He did. Somehow or other he managed to convince us that forewarned was forearmed, that it was better to have a bottle or two of cough-syrup in our medicine chests at home than on the shelves of the drug-store, when the chill autumnal winds began to blow, especially when you could buy it now for thirty-nine cents, whereas it would be fifty-four in October.
Still earlier in his career as a business man he noticed that the local practitioners wrote their prescriptions on odd scraps of paper.
"That's all wrong," he declared. "We'll have to fix it." And by next morning the job-printing press back of the Court House was groaning under an order from Graham and Duncan's, and a few days later every physician within several miles of Radville received half a dozen neat pads of blanks with his name and address printed at the top and the advice across the bottom: "Go to Graham's for the best and purest drugs and chemicals." The backs of the blanks were utilised to request people living out of reach, but on rural free delivery routes, either to mail their prescriptions and other orders in, or have the physicians telephone them, promising to fill and despatch them by the first post.
For he had a telephone installed within the first fortnight, and the next day advertised in theGazettethat orders by telephone would receive prompt attention and be delivered without delay. Tracey Tanner became his delivery-boy, deserting his father's stables for the obvious advantages of three dollars a week with a chance to learn the business.... Sothern and Lee were quick to recognise the advantage the telephone gave Graham and Duncan, and promptly had one put in their store; but the delay had proven almost fatal: Radville had already got into the habit of telephoning to Graham's for a cake of soap, or whatnot, and it's hard to break a Radville habit.
As business increased and the stock turned itself over at a profit, Duncan began to branch out, to make improvements and introduce new lines of goods. He it was who inoculated Radville with the habit of buying manufactured candies. Up to the time of his advent, we had been accustomed to and content with home-made taffies and fudges—and were, I've no doubt, vastly better off on that account. But Duncan, starting with a line of five- and ten-cent packages of indigestible sweets, in time made arrangements with a big Pittsburgh confectionery concern to ship him a small consignment of pound and half-pound "fancy" boxes of chocolates and bonbons twice a week. And taffy-pulls and fudge parties lapsed into desuetude.
Later, Sperry introduced him to an association of druggists, of which he became a member, for the maintenance and exploitation of the cigar and tobacco trade in connection with the drug business. They installed at Graham's a handsome show-case and fixtures especially for the sale and display of cigars, and thereafter it was possible to purchase smokable tobacco in our town.
Again, he treated Radville to its first circulating library, establishing a branch in the store. One could buy a book at a moderate price, and either keep it or exchange it for a fee of a few cents. I disputed the wisdom of this move, alleging, and with reason, that Radville didn't read modern fiction to any extent. But Duncan argued that it didn't matter. "They're going to try it on as a novelty, to begin with," he said, "and it'll bring 'em into the store for a few exchanges, at least. That's all I want. Once we get 'em in here, it'll be hard if we can't sell them something else. You'll see."
He was right.
Undoubtedly he made the business hum during those first few months; and after that it settled down to a steady forward movement. The store became a social centre, a place for people to meet. In time Tracey was promoted to be assistant and another boy engaged to make deliveries. ... And Duncan had never been happier; he had found something he could understand and, understanding, accomplish; there was work for his hands to do, and they had discovered they could do it successfully. I don't believe he stopped to think about it very much, but he was conscious of that glow of achievement, that heightening of the spirits, that comes with the knowledge of success, be that success however insignificant, and it benefited him enormously....
But this chronicle of progress has run away altogether with a desultory pen, which started to tell why Duncan didn't want to go to Josie Lockwood's party. I was long in finding out, but not so long as Duncan himself, perhaps; by which I mean to say that he was conscious of the desire not to go, and determined not to, without stopping to analyse the cause of that desire more than very superficially.
It happened, toward the close of the eventful day already detailed at such length, that as Duncan was entering the house with a load of boxed goods, he heard voices in the store—young voices, of which one was already too familiar to his ears. He paused, waiting for them to get through with their business and go; for he had no time to waste just then, even upon the heiress of his manufactured destiny. Betty was keeping shop at the time (old Sam having gone upstairs for a little rest, who was overwrought and weary with the excitement of that day) and it was Duncan's hope that she would be able to serve the customers without his assistance.
There were two of them, you see—Josie and Angle Tuthill—hunting as usual in couples; and while he waited, not meaning to eavesdrop but unwilling to betray his whereabouts by moving, he heard very clearly their passage with Betty.
He overheard first, distinctly, Betty responding in expressionless voice: "Hello, Angie.... Hello, Josie."
There ensued what seemed a slightly awkward pause. Then Josie, painfully sweet: "Did you get the invitation, Betty?"
Betty moved into Duncan's range of vision, apparently intending to come and call him. She turned at the question, and he saw her small, thin little body and pinched faceen silhouetteagainst the fading light beyond. He saw, too, that she was stiffening herself as if for some unequal contest.
"The invitation?" she questioned dully, but with her head up and steady.
"Why," said Josie, "I sent you one. To the party, you know—my lawn feet next week."
I give the local pronunciation as it is.
"Did you?"
"I gave it to Tracey for you," persisted the tormentor. "Didn't you get it?"
Betty caught at her breath, inaudibly; only Duncan could see the little spasm of mortification and anger that shook her.
"Oh, perhaps I did," she said shortly. "I—I'll ask Mr. Duncan to wait on you."
She swung quickly out into the hallway, slamming the door behind her and so darkening it that she didn't detect Duncan's shadowed figure. And if she had meant to call him, she must have forgotten it; for an instant later he heard her stumbling up the stairs, and as she disappeared he caught the echo of a smothered sob.
He waited, motionless, too disturbed at the time to care to enter the store and endure Josie's vapid advances; and through the thin partition there came to him their comments on Betty's ungracious behaviour.
"Well!...didyou ever!"
That was Angle; Josie chimed in the same key: "Oh, what did you expect from that kind of a girl?"
"Ssh!maybe he's coming!"
After a moment's silence, Josie: "Oh, come on. Don't let's wait any longer. I don't think it's healthy to drink sody so soon before dinner, anyway."
"And, besides, we only wanted to hear—"
Their voices with their footsteps diminished. Duncan allowed a prudent interval to elapse, entered the store and began to bestow the goods he had brought in.
While he was at work the light failed. He stopped for lack of it just as Betty came downstairs.
"Hello!" he said cheerfully. "Know where the matches are?"
"Yes." She moved behind a counter and fetched him a few. "Are you 'most done?" she inquired, not unfriendly, as he took down from its bracket one of the oil lamps.
"Hardly," he responded, touching a light to the wick and replacing the chimney. "It's a good deal of a job."
"Yes..."
He replaced the lamp, and in the act of turning toward another caught a glimpse of the girl's face, pale and drawn, her eyes a trifle reddened. And with that commonsense departed from him, leaving him wholly a prey to his impulse of pity. "Oh, thunder!" he told himself, thrusting a hand into his pocket. "I might as well be broke as the way I am now." He produced the scanty remains of his "grubstake."
"Miss Graham..."
"Yes?" she asked, wondering.
"Could you get a party dress for thirty-four dollars?"
"Thirty-four dollars!" she faltered.
He discovered what small change he had in his pocket: it was like him to be extravagant, even extreme. "And fifty-three cents?" he pursued, with a nervous laugh.
"Heavens!" the girl gasped. "I should think so!"
"Then go ahead!" He offered her the money, but she could only stare, incredulous. "I'll stake you."
"Oh...no, Mr. Duncan," she managed to say.
"Oh, yes!" He tried to catch one of the hands that involuntarily had risen toward her face in a gesture of wonder. "Please do," he begged, his tone persuasive, "as a favour to me."
But she evaded him, stepping back. "I couldn't take it; I couldn't really."
"Yes, you can. Just try it once, and see how easy it is," he persisted, pursuing.
"No, I can't." She looked up shyly and shook her head, that smile of her mother's for the moment illuminating her face almost with the radiance of beauty. "But I—I thank you very much—just the same."
"But I want you to go to that party..."
"You're awful' kind," she said softly, still smiling, "but I don't care to go, now. I—"
"Don't care to! Why, you were insisting on going, a little while ago."
"Yes," she admitted simply, "I know I was. But ... I've been thinking over what you said, since then, and I ... I've made up my mind I'd be out of place there."
"Out of place!" he echoed, thunderstruck.
"Yes. I've concluded I belong here in the store with father." She half turned away. "And I guess folks is better off if they stay where they belong...."
She went slowly from the room, and he remained staring, stupefied.
"You never can tell about a woman," he concluded with all the gravity of an original philosopher.